TERMS OF BUSINESS BETWEEN ALTERNATIVE INSURANCE BROKERS AND THE POLICYHOLDER

These terms will apply to your use of our telephone services, whether or not you choose to take out insurance cover, and access to our website demonstrates your agreement to these terms. Please read these terms carefully – particularly if you choose to take out insurance cover with us. These terms are subject to change at any time and we will display only the current version on our website.

The Financial Conduct Authority.

Alternative Insurance Brokers is a trading name of Alternative Propositions Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under registered number 602443. Our permitted business is advising, arranging and dealing as an agent of insurers and clients, assisting in the administration and performance of general insurance contracts and credit broking. You may check this on the Financial Services Register by visiting the FCA website, www.FCA.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.

Our Service

Our services include: advising you on your insurance needs; arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make. We offer a wide range of insurance products and conduct a fair and personal analysis of the market using our available panel of insurers in respect of, Private Motor Policies, Private Motorcycle Policies; Specialist Vehicle Policies; Household Policies, Taxi Policies and Commercial Policies – we are not contractually obliged to offer insurance from these insurers. A single insurer has been selected as being suitable following an assessment of similar products commonly available for Claims Manager Policies, Breakdown Policies, Keycare Policies, Excess Protection Policies, Guaranteed Hire Car, Windscreen Cover Policies, Guaranteed Asset Protection Policies, Wedding Insurance Policies, Home Emergency Policies and Family Legal Solutions Policies – we are not contractually obliged to offer insurance from the insurer of these policies. We will advise if a single insurer has been selected you will be advised. We will advise and make recommendations for you after we have assessed your needs. A full list of insurers is available upon request. We act on your behalf in selecting an appropriate policy to meet your needs and in assisting you with claims matters. We may act on your behalf, or on behalf of the insurer, in arranging your cover. Please let us know if you would like confirmation of the situation for any policy arranged for you. We act as intermediary in arranging your cover or premium finance with providers. If a policy is purchased on-line this will be deemed as a non-advised sale. If you conclude the contract by calling ourselves or conducting a quotation via the phone this will be completed as an advised sale. We will also advise on the premium finance options available to you and arrange this for you if needed.

Charges for Our Services

We normally receive commission (being a percentage of your premium or finance charge) from the insurers or product providers with whom we deal and will make charges, payable by you of the following amounts for the ongoing administration of your insurance.

Schedule of Fees

Policy Arrangement Fee

40% of the insurers premium

Permanent Adjustment to Policy

£50.00*

Temporary Adjustment

£50.00

Renewal Administration Fee

40% of the insurers premium

Duplicate Certificate of Motor Insurance

£25.00

Cancellation Charge with the first 14 days

See Cancellation Of Policy Below

Cancellation Charge after the first 14 days

See Cancellation Of Policy Below

Unpaid Cheque

£25.00

Represented DDM

£30.00

*we will also retain our 15% commission on any adjustment or cancellation. When your policy is arranged you will be informed of the total price to be paid, including any fees, taxes and charges separately from the premium, before your insurance arrangements are concluded. This will also be displayed within your welcome documentation.

Cancellation of Policy

Once we have arranged your insurance cover and have processed your policy documentation you have a statutory right to cancel this insurance within an initial period of 14 days. Please refer to your policy summary or your policy document for further details. If you cancel within the initial period you will receive a pro rata refund of premium from the insurer minus any fee charged by the insurer. We may also keep £50 that reflects our administration costs of arranging and cancelling the insurance. Our commission will be excluded from any refund calculations. Be aware that cancellation refunds outside of the initial period are not given after a claim, and note that some insurers charge cancelled policies on a short period scale, resulting in a disproportionately greater charge for the period of insurance, and refunds being lower than clients’ expectations. If this policy has been purchased in connection with an impounded vehicle short term insurance, no part of any payment made is refundable in any circumstances. Please note that we are unable to backdate cancellations.

If your policy contains any additional covers then these and our commission will be excluded from any refund calculations.

Your premium is periodically forwarded to the insurer and once this process has occurred, in the event of a refund we will request payment from the insurer. As a result refunds can not be issued until the insurer has released the funds. This process usually takes up to 30 days. You are always advised to discuss your options with us prior to deciding upon cancellation of your policy.

Instalment Terms

Alternative out source all instalments paid over ten months to third party providers. This is in order to assist our policyholders’ in spreading their premiums over the maximum duration that is available and to conform to The Financial Conduct Authority solvency requirements.

By agreeing to pay over monthly instalments you will be entering into a finance agreement with Close Brothers Ltd, trading as Close Premium Finance to pay your insurance premiums. The cost of the finance will include the insurance premium, the interest at the agreed rate and may also include administration fees. These are illustrated within the welcome pack that will be sent to you. It is very important that you read the pre-contractual information included within the welcome pack and take time to consider all the information carefully. It contains details of the cost of the finance, the payments that you will need to make, the dates on which these will be due as well as the terms and conditions of the finance agreement itself, which is Close Brothers legal contract with you. This information will enable you to make an informed decision about whether or not this finance agreement is the right product for you. Should you default on your agreement then a default fee will be applied when collecting the arrears. In the event of the agreement arrears not being cleared by a specific date, which will be advised to you, Close Brothers may terminate your agreement and enforce any security given by you under the terms of the agreement. This could result in the cancellation of your finance agreement, your insurance policy or both. You will be liable to pay all sums owing to Close Brothers as well as any charges that Close Brothers may impose upon you. This may also affect you credit rating. You have the right to withdraw from the finance agreement Close Brothers is offering you within 15 days commencing from the day you receive the Welcome Pack. There will be no charge for withdrawal from the finance agreement within the defined time and any money we have collected in respect of the finance agreement will be refunded, If you do withdraw from the finance agreement then you must find an alternative method of payment for your insurance premium. You can repay the finance at any time, either in full or partial repayment. Where partial repayment is made you must continue to meet the remaining minimum monthly repayments. You can obtain further information by contacting Close Brothers on 0870 990 7967 or by writing to Close Brothers at Close Premium Finance, 21st Floor, Tolworth Tower, Ewell Road, Surbiton, KT6 7ELIn the event of an instalment becoming overdue or payment being declined from your card, you agree that such a default shall be construed as an instruction for Alternative to start policy cancellation procedures. In the event of an accident, claim or incident under my policy the balance for the total amount payable shall become due immediately on demand. You authorise Alternative to deduct any refund received from the underwriters from your outstanding balance and you understand that any shortfall following cancellation is your responsibility. If this shortfall is not cleared No Claims Bonus may be withheld until this has been paid in full.

Claims Procedure

If your vehicle is involved in an incident, or you wish to discuss or make a claim, please call our claims service on 0800 031 4955. If your claim relates to a non-motor product please call 0161 495 6000.

Your Responsibilities

You confirm that you have the permission of all named drivers on the policy to provide us with their personal information such as name, address, occupation and information about health, criminal convictions or claims history.

Your insurance is based upon the information provided to the insurance company. Failure to comply with the following disclosure requirements invalidate your insurance cover and mean that a claim may not be paid. Failure to disclose material information may invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that a claim may not be paid or an additional premium may be incurred. Unless otherwise indicated by the specific insurer underwriting your particular policy, the following circumstances apply. For Consumers (individuals buying insurance wholly or mainly for purposes unrelated to their trade, business or profession) this means that you must take reasonable care to answer all questions fully and accurately. Once cover has been arranged, you must immediately notify us of any changes to the information that has been provided to your insurers. All other customers must present the risk (i.e. the subject matter of the proposed insurance) fairly. This means that you must disclose to insurers, before arranging or renewing your insurance policy, and throughout the policy period, anything that might influence the judgement of an insurer in fixing the premium, setting the terms or determining whether they would take the risk. If you are uncertain whether anything is material, you should disclose it. In order to identify what must be disclosed, you are obliged to carry out a reasonable search before presenting the risk to insurers. This includes (but is not limited to) consulting with all senior managers (anyone who plays a significant role in the making of decisions about how your activities re to be managed or organised, regardless of whether or not that individual is a member of your board or is formally in a management role). You must also consult with anyone who has particular knowledge about the risk to be insured.

You understand that this contract unless otherwise stated will be subject to English Law. You agree to co-operate with us in supplying information and documentation that you require promptly i.e. within four weeks. Failure to do so may result in cover being withdrawn. You accept responsibility to ensure that you hold a current cover note or certificate of insurance. By accepting these terms you are giving your consent for us to operate for you in this way.

Complaints Procedure

Our aim is to provide you with a high level of service at all times. However, if something has gone wrong and you wish to make a complaint, please call us on 0161 495 6000 or write or email (docs@alternativeinsurancebrokers.co.uk) to our Customer Care Manager at Anglia House, Carrs Road, Cheadle SK8 2LA. We expect the majority of complaints will be quickly and satisfactorily resolved at this stage. If we are able to provide a final response within five business days of receipt of a complaint we may combine our acknowledgement of the complaint with the final response. A final response is a written response from us which:

Accepts your complaint and where appropriate offers redress

Offers redress without accepting the complaint

Rejects your complaint and gives reasons for doing so

It will also inform you that, if you remain dissatisfied with our response, you may refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and must do so within six months to be eligible. The FOS can be contacted by telephone on 0300 123 9 123 and further information is available at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk If you do decide to refer any matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service your legal rights will not be affected.

We will within four weeks of receiving your complaint send you either:

A final response or

A holding response, which explains why we are not yet in a position to resolve your complaint and indicates when we will make further contact (this will be within 8 weeks of receipt of your complaint.)

We will, by the end of eight weeks after receipt of your complaint, send you either:

A final response or

A response which explains that we are still not in a position to make a final response , giving reasons for the further delay and indicating when we expect to provide a final response. It will also inform you that you may refer your complaint to the FOS.

You may accept our response in writing at any time during this process, even when we have not issued a final response. Our response need not refer to the FOS, but we will explain how your complaint will be progressed if you remain dissatisfied.

. If the matter complained about is the responsibility of another firm (for example the insurer) we will pass details to them in writing within 5 business days and will issue a final response to you advising what we have done.

Compensation Arrangements

We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim without any upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS on 0800 678 1100 or by visiting www.fscs.org.uk

Protecting your Personal Data (data)

We are the Data Controller for the data you provide to us. We need to use your data in order to arrange your insurance and associated products and for marketing purposes (please let us know if you would prefer not to receive marketing information from us). You are obliged to provide information without which we will be unable to provide a service to you. We may pass your data to other organisations, such as insurers, auditors, external consultants, credit providers, banks, financial transaction processors, crime and fraud prevention agencies and databases and regulators. We process all data in the UK but where we need to disclose data to parties outside the European Economic Area (EEA) we will take reasonable steps to ensure the privacy of your data. In order to protect our legal position, we will retain your data for a minimum of 7 years. We have a Data Protection regime in place to oversee the effective and secure processing of your data. You can request copies of the data we hold, have it corrected, sent to a third party or deleted (subject to our need to hold data for legal reasons). If you wish to complain about how we have handled your data, you can contact us and we will investigate the matter. If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your data incorrectly you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF Tel: 0303 123 1113

By accepting this policy you consent to our processing personal data including sensitive data about you and other persons who may be insured under the policy. You understand that all personal data you give to us must be accurate and that you have the specific consent of those other persons to disclose their personal data.

Insurers pass information to the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register (CUE), run by Insurance Database Services Ltd, the Hunter Database, run by MCL Software Ltd., and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register (MIAFTR), run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). We, and your insurer, may search these registers as this helps us to check information provided and to prevent fraudulent claims. We may also undertake credit searches and additional fraud searches. Under the conditions of your policy you must tell us about any incident (such as an accident or theft) which may or may not give rise to a claim. When you tell us about an incident we will pass information relating to it to the registers.

Your policy details will be added to the Motor Insurance Database (MID), run by the Motor Insurers’ Information Centre (MIIC). MID data may be used by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland (DVLNI) for the purpose of Electronic Vehicle Licensing and by the Police to help clarify the driver’s use of a motor insurance policy and/or for preventing and detecting crime. If you are involved in an accident in the UK or abroad, other UK insurers, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau and MIIC may search the MID to obtain relevant policy information. Persons pursuing a claim in respect of a road traffic accident may also obtain relevant information which is held on the MID. You can find out more about this at www.miic.org.uk on the internet.

You should show these notes to anyone insured to drive the vehicle covered under this policy.

Your information may also be used for customer services, marketing (including customer profiling), offering renewals, research and statistical purposes, and crime prevention. We may share your information with our agents or service providers and with third parties with whom we have a business relationship, for the purposes described above. If you give us information about another person, in doing so you confirm that they have given your permission to provide it to us to be able to process their personal data (including any sensitive personal data) and also that you have told them who we are and what we will use their data for, as set out in this notice.

In the case of personal data, with limited exceptions, you have the right to access and if necessary rectify information held about you by formal written application. You will need to direct your application to our Data Protection Officer at Alternative Insurance Brokers Data Validation

We will validate name, address and other personal information supplied by you against appropriate third party databases. To make sure you get the best deal and to ascertain the most appropriate payment options for you and to protect you from fraud, we use public and personal data from a variety of sources, including a credit referencing agency and other organisations. Our search will appear on your credit report whether or not your application proceeds. As well as these searches insurance companies may use a credit check to ascertain the most appropriate payment options for you. This credit check will also appear on your credit report whether or not your applications proceed. By agreeing to the terms and conditions you agree to these uses of your information.

Protecting Your Money

Prior to your premium being forwarded to the insurer, and for your protection, we hold your money as an agent of the insurer, in which case your insurance is treated as being paid for. We may need to transfer your money to another intermediary in some cases. However, your money will be protected at all times because of our requirements under the FCA rules. We also reserve the right to retain interest earned on this account.

Solvency

We do not guarantee the solvency of any insurer we place business with. We do not accept liability for any losses you may incur arising directly or indirectly from the financial failure or insolvency of any insurer.

You may have a liability for the premium, whether in full or pro-rata where a participating insurer becomes insolvent

Quotations

Any quotation is only valid for the day on which you supplied information and upon which the quotation has been calculated.

Force Majeure

We shall not be held liable for any breach of our terms of business or any failure to provide, or any delay in providing our services through our website that is a result of any event or circumstance that is beyond our reasonable control. This includes: industrial action or strike of workforce; Landlord disputes; lockouts from trading premises or any other industrial dispute; Breakdown of systems or network access; Fire; Explosion; Flood or Natural disaster; Accident; Insurrection and War. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

Blog Disclosure

The Alternative Insurance Brokers’ blog is written and distributed for informational and entertainment purposes only. Any information given is correct and accurate to the best of Alternative Insurance brokers’ knowledge at the time it is published. The information given is subject to change over time as the rules and regulations of the insurance industry change and any information may become outdated. Therefore use any information provided within our blog at your own risk. However if you would like to receive advice on any of the topics discussed in our blog then please call us on 0161 495 6000 or email enquiries@altrnativeinsurancebrokers.co.uk.

Unless stated otherwise all content and information provided is the legal copyright of Alternative Insurance Brokers.

Our Competition T&Cs

The competition is open to residents of the United Kingdom aged 18 years or over except employees of Alternative Propositions Limited.

There is no entry fee, you are automatically entered if you leave Alternative Insurance Brokers a review, unless you request otherwise by writing to sales@alternativeinsurancebrokers.co.uk.

By entering this competition, the entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

Only one entry will be accepted per person. Multiple entries from the same person will be disqualified.

No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.

Alternative Insurance Brokers hold the right to refuse entrants for whatever reason.

Winner will be chosen the first Monday of every month. The winner will be contact by email or phone, using the details that were provided for their policy.

Closing date for entry will be the last day of every month. Any entries after this date will be entered into the draw for the following month.

If the winner is unable to be contacted within 14 days, then a new winner will be picked.

The winner can chose from any voucher that can be found on https://www.highstreetvouchers.com/. This competition is not in partnership, or sponsored by High Street Vouchers. No cash alternatives will be available.

Alternative Insurance Brokers has the right to provide an alternative prize to the same value if unforeseen circumstances prevent the original prize being entered.

Alternative Insurance Brokers is a trading name of Alternative Propositions Limited which is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority No. 602443. Trading address: Alternative Insurance Brokers, Anglia House, Carrs Road, Cheadle, Cheshire, SK8 2LA.
Registered in England No 8253536.
Calls may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes.